Overfishing and pollution are main threats to ocean, not "acidification"

“Here, we present a compilation of continuous, high-resolution time series of upper ocean pH, collected using autonomous sensors, over a variety of ecosystems ranging from polar to tropical, open-ocean to coastal, kelp forest to coral reef. These observations reveal a continuum of month-long pH variability with standard deviations from 0.004 to 0.277 and ranges spanning 0.024 to 1.430 pH units. The nature of the observed variability was also highly site-dependent, with characteristic diel, semi-diurnal, and stochastic patterns of varying amplitudes. These biome-specific pH signatures disclose current levels of exposure to both high and low dissolved CO2, often demonstrating that resident organisms are already experiencing pH regimes that are not predicted until 2100.“

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“Ocean acidification.” How many times do we see that phrase in the mainstream media? The phrase intentionally creates the impression that the oceans are slowly turning into battery acid, eating away at shellfish and coral just as the phosphoric acid in fizzy drinks dissolves teeth. Just today in the Silly Moaning Herald publishes another alarming piece on the subject:

The uptake of carbon dioxide into the oceans drives a change in ocean chemistry, changing hydrogen levels and the concentration of carbonate ions that pteropods and other organisms use to build their calcium carbonate shells.

The higher acidity also eats away at the organisms’ shells.

“Southern Ocean waters are absorbing more carbon dioxide than anywhere else on the planet so if we are going to see an effect on the biology were going to see it first in the Southern Ocean,” Dr Roberts said.

Acidification is expected to increase significantly over the next century.

“We often call it the evil twin of climate change,” Dr Roberts said.

“The little critters that have got shells that are going to be eaten away by the acid, they’re in trouble.

“We’re really worried about whether they are going to be here in the future and how that will change the Southern Ocean food chain because it’s the biggest ocean in the world. (source)

Firstly, “acidification” is the term used because it sounds scarier than the more accurate alternatives “becoming less alkaline”, or “becoming more neutral” since as discussed here, the pH of the oceans has dropped slightly from 8.2 to about 8.1, still well short of neutral (7), let alone turning acidic.

Matt Ridley injects some sense into the debate in an article in the Wall Street Journal, in which he argues that natural variation in pH exceeds such tiny anthropogenic changes by at least an order of magnitude, that many studies show that shell formation can actually increase in less alkaline conditions, and that in any case overfishing and pollution are far more damaging to the marine ecosystems than “acidification”:

“On both a monthly and annual scale, even the most stable open ocean sites see pH changes many times larger than the annual rate of acidification,” say the authors of the study, adding that because good instruments to measure ocean pH have only recently been deployed, “this variation has been under-appreciated.” Over coral reefs, the pH decline between dusk and dawn is almost half as much as the decrease in average pH expected over the next 100 years. The noise is greater than the signal.

Another recent study, by scientists from the U.K., Hawaii and Massachusetts, concluded that “marine and freshwater assemblages have always experienced variable pH conditions,” and that “in many freshwater lakes, pH changes that are orders of magnitude greater than those projected for the 22nd-century oceans can occur over periods of hours.”

This adds to other hints that the ocean-acidification problem may have been exaggerated. For a start, the ocean is alkaline and in no danger of becoming acid (despite headlines like that from Reuters in 2009: “Climate Change Turning Seas Acid”). If the average pH of the ocean drops to 7.8 from 8.1 by 2100 as predicted, it will still be well above seven, the neutral point where alkalinity becomes acidity.

The central concern is that lower pH will make it harder for corals, clams and other “calcifier” creatures to make calcium carbonate skeletons and shells. Yet this concern also may be overstated. Off Papua New Guinea and the Italian island of Ischia, where natural carbon-dioxide bubbles from volcanic vents make the sea less alkaline, and off the Yucatan, where underwater springs make seawater actually acidic, studies have shown that at least some kinds of calcifiers still thrive—at least as far down as pH 7.8.

In a recent experiment in the Mediterranean, reported in Nature Climate Change, corals and mollusks were transplanted to lower pH sites, where they proved “able to calcify and grow at even faster than normal rates when exposed to the high [carbon-dioxide] levels projected for the next 300 years.” In any case, freshwater mussels thrive in Scottish rivers, where the pH is as low as five.

Laboratory experiments find that more marine creatures thrive than suffer when carbon dioxide lowers the pH level to 7.8. This is because the carbon dioxide dissolves mainly as bicarbonate, which many calcifiers use as raw material for carbonate.

Human beings have indeed placed marine ecosystems under terrible pressure, but the chief culprits are overfishing and pollution. By comparison, a very slow reduction in the alkalinity of the oceans, well within the range of natural variation, is a modest threat, and it certainly does not merit apocalyptic headlines. (source)

Comments

Wow, who’d have thought it? It would take rather a lot of new gases to acidify the ocean, it’s gone from around 8.1 to 7.9, and tests show the carbonates required for shell creation are actually increasing. I’m not even certain if any studies exist to show a neutral ocean would make much difference, it’s hardly hostile to life.

Well the quopte is from an article by Matt Ridley who was educated at Eton College from 1970–1975 and then went on to Magdalen College of the University of Oxford and completed a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours in zoology and then a Doctor of Philosophy in zoology in 1983.

nfw – has Matt Ridley published in the peer-reveiwed scientific literature on ocean acidification? Has his work stood up to scrutiny by other experts in the field?

The answer is no. He is no more an expert than I am. In fact he is far less of an expert than me. I actually can read and understand the studies that Ridley cites. They contradict his claims. Does that not trouble you?

Rob, Blind chicken can hit the corn, ones in 50 attempts; and this is it. 1] The seawater is getting more alkaline, NOT acidic; they are misleading about lowering of pH. Every year lots of lime, magnesium, ash, salt, chlorine, bleach and products with bleach in, potassium, get washed from the land into the sea – they are ALL highly alkaline elements / compounds. Saying that; no. 2 follows, it’s a page on my website, on the ”sea becoming more alkaline”. Better to read there the lot first, because: pH7 would have being disaster, not for what Warmist think; but for real reason:

2] the real reason: it’s ESSENTIAL for the sea to be alkaline / rivers acidic. Because alkalinity and acidity are keeping the water clear small kind of sterilisation. Rainwater is pH7, keep it for a month on the open; EVERY BACTERIA / PARASITE GROWS IN IT > becomes inhospitable for most of fish. The Warmist are obsessed to blame CO2, because of that, they are not interested to look for the truth. Skeptics like you, are like in a thug-off-war, just puling the other way. If you want truth / facts; you have to visit my website. I’m not affected by any brainwashing or hatred, only 24 carats proofs. Please tell the Sceptical people: ” stefanthedenier proves that: the sea is getting more alkaline 2] pH7 WOULD BE DISASTER, BUT THAT CAN NEVER HAPPEN EVEN THEORETICALLY” When the Warmist discover from us that: lowering pH to below pH7,3 – would make the water sick for most of we like… When they plagiarise , without recognising where it comes from – it’s piracy, is illegal; should will start calling them Buccaneers. If they admit where it comes from – enough people will learn lots of other proofs on my website > Kyoto Protocol will melt like ice-cube in Darwin. happy new year!

No, coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef is declining. Even Sweatmann (2011) who claimed the GBR was OK, actually shows that coral cover has declined in the last decade. He blames crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and cyclone damage, despite little evidence in his study to support this.

I would like someone to go out and actually investigate the nonsense claims that 17-19% (several papers), or 25% (one bloggist who didnt cite sources), or 10% (Wiki) of the world’s coral reefs have ALREADY been destroyed in the last 3-4 decades.

I have been visiting several areas of reefs all over the pacific over the last 20 years and see no change whatsoever. Most S Pacific reefs are out of reach of any human activity and not remotely affected by local pollution/fishing or any other human activity.

I have also seen virtually no change in tidal levels in Sydney harbour over the same time period, a plain common sense observation which are consistent with the measured 1mm/year rise. I suspect reefs are about as affected, zero to negligible.

This ’10-25% coral reef already destroyed’ claim is a nonsense and bogus claim that proper investigation should easily show, which would stop these nuts from making further such nonsense claims.

I think if you investigate where and how an average ph for the oceans was decided you will see the absurdity in this whole argument. Ocean ph varies widely and is impacted by location and season. The only way to tell what the “average” was pre industrial revolution is to backwards model the chemistry of the ocean. Keep in mind that the ph scale has only been with us since the beginning of the 20th century and only to 4 decimal points since digital technology.

Yes ocean pH varies on all timescales. It isn’t random though. It’s kind of like arguing that global warming isn’t happening because temperature at your location is below the global average overnight. A bit silly, right?

Thirtysomething Dr Donna Roberts seems to me to be a very clever young scientist milking emotional reactions to “climate change” to guarantee a funding stream for research of a weak marine biology hypothesis that should have been challenged by more experienced MBs in her own department. Further evidence that science and scientists are a technocratic elite out of control that has worked out the political button it must push and keep pushing (go to the media and place stories that scare people) to guarantee endless professional riches. Cynical and working a treat, until a government of adults replaces the gullible non-experts currently in charge of the money.

The Global warming / Co2 hoax is dieing a lingering death. Yes we should protect our oceans and Eco system from over fishing and pollutants. But the alarmist, warmers, CO2 tax scammer’s and the IPPC have tried to blame CO2 a harmless beneficial trace gas.
The lies and deception are so sickeningly obvious that even Ponzi himself couldn’t sell it! The warmist crowd and their cries of alarm that world Is doomed unless you pay us LOT’S OF CARBON TAX MONEY they and the IPPC are being proved wrong at every turn!

You don’t need “climate science’ to do physics and chemistry, but you need chemistry and physics to do what passes for “climate science” the PH of the ocean is never constant but changes over the day and night and from season to season.

By golly, us humans who are fortunate to have salt pools are told to keep Ph around 7.2. How come we can swim in the oceans healthily and not be destroyed? I am sick and tired of listening to the spin of these fraudulent so called scientists!!

“Warming ocean waters are causing the largest movement of marine species seen on Earth in more than two million years, according to scientists. ”
The Telegraph, By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent
If the oceans are also warming at the same time the sham is complete, since CO2 would be outgassed during warming. Also I believe the ocean to air content of CO2 is in the order of three magnitudes.

No Lutz, one can do simple calculations (ballpark estimates) to figure out how much ocean warming we will need to counter the enormous increase on CO2 that has dissolved into the oceans.

It turns out that we need a 10°C increase in water temperature of the ocean surface before we see net CO2 outgassing from the ocean. We’ve seen a few tenths of a degree. So no get-out-of-jail-for-free card.

There are no negative results from ocean acidification up to 0.3 pH units, rather mortality improves, fertility improves, survival improves, growth improves, and calcification is not negatively impacted. But this requires one to actually look at the measured data. For those without the time to go through over 500 measured experimental results I recommend you check this out:

The term ‘ocean acidification’ is as much misused as ‘carbon pollution’ and both have more to do with ‘Jedi mind tricks’ than science.

FACT – The ocean is no more acidic now than it has ever been in the past and is in no danger of ever becoming acidic.
FACT – Even dissolving all the CO2 released by burning all the world’s fossil fuel reserves will never make the oceans acidic.

In any case, the world’s current ocean ph levels are well within normal variants dating back millions of years.

Yes, the ocean will not drop below a pH of 7. That is unimportant to marine life because marine calcifiers are greatly affected by the calcium carbonate saturation state. When that drops they find it more and more difficult to build their shells/skeletons.

Not all marine life are affected by this, but many of the important one are. Coral, for instance. That’s why they have become extinct in Earth’s past when ocean acidification occurred. Acidification which took place (naturally) much, much slower than today.

As I mentioned Rob, ‘ocean acidification’ is a non-scientific term, so using it does nothing to improve your argument.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography have published a study showing how much the pH level varies naturally between parts of the ocean and at different times of the day, month and year.

“On both a monthly and annual scale, even the most stable open ocean sites see pH changes many times larger than the annual rate of acidification,” say the authors of the study, adding that because good instruments to measure ocean pH have only recently been deployed, “this variation has been under-appreciated.” Over coral reefs, the pH decline between dusk and dawn is almost half as much as the decrease in average pH expected over the next 100 years. The noise is greater than the signal.

So as I said, the world’s current ocean ph levels are well within normal variants.

That term was coined by experts in the field of ocean chemistry. It means the increase in hydrogen ions in a solution (hydronium in seawater).

As for the variable pH. Big deal. Oceanographers have known about that for decades, they just did not have the capability of carrying out long-term measurements. Sure this is flabbergasting news to the completely naive, but not to people with some background knowledge.

I don’t know of any scientist who would have expected the mean (average) ocean pH to be anything other than a mean ocean pH. It like arguing global warming isn’t a problem because temperature at a given location varies because of winter/summer and night/day.

Here’s the key issue, and it’s much the same as global temperature. Increasing ocean pH will ‘float all the boats.’ In other words areas with great fluctuations, will see greater fluctuations. The North American Pacific coast is a prime example, shellfish there have adapted to more variable pH, but are now beginning to be devastated by corrosive seawater. The oyster industry has taken a beating because the water there is seasonally so corrosive that oyster larvae dissolve and die.

“That’s why they have become extinct in Earth’s past when ocean acidification occurred. Acidification which took place (naturally) much, much slower than today.”

Yes, the first part is true, there are coral reef gaps in the geological record, which occurred very slowly over hundreds of thousands of years.

But how do you know that the rate at which the oceans will respond to changes in the atmosphere is now going to be orders of magnitude faster? In other words, you are assuming a linear response, yet everything we knwow about the ocean is that is doesn’t act in a linear fashion. In other words, we don’t know the rate of change in the atmosphere back then, we only know the rate at which the oceans responded-ie very slowly. Alarmist scientists only assume the atmospheric change rate back then was much slower, based on the rate of corresponding rate of change in the ocean (a linear relationship assumption).

But there is an alternative possibility, the oceans changed very slowly because they are strongly buffered, and increasing the rate of c02 wont affect this strong buffering of the ocean for tens/hundreds of thousands of years, regardless of increased c02 input (an example of what buffering is, rate of change does not respond linearly to rate of whatever the input is), due to eg: rate of carbonate precipitation in sediments across thousands of kilometres of ocean/continental sea floor (buffered), rate of dissolution of carbonate in sedments across thousands of kilometres of ocean/continental sea floor (buffered), rate of carbonate exchange along mid ocean ridges across thousands of kilometres of ocean/continental sea floor (buffered) among various other factors.

What this means, is that if you increase the rate of c02 dissolution into the ocean, the ocean barely responds due to a variety of buffering processes, which is why it takes so long to change the chemistry of the ocean in the geological record.

Alarmists may be dead wrong about assuming a linear rate of change with regards to atmosphere-ocean chemical exchange and various buffers, which is also supported by the very slow rates of change in the ocean in the geological record.

Meaning, we don’t have to worry about lowering pH to significant levels for several tens of thousand years, and during that period, oceanic life has also evolved ways to adapt, as usual, as it also does seasonally/daily/annually with pH.

So the scare tactic about coral reefs collapsing, is, as usual, likely to be exaggerated vastly.

Thingadonta –“But how do you know that the rate at which the oceans will respond to changes in the atmosphere is now going to be orders of magnitude faster? In other words, you are assuming a linear response, yet everything we knwow about the ocean is that is doesn’t act in a linear fashion”

The chemical wearing away of rock (silicate and carbonate weathering) is an extraordinarily slow process by human timeframes. It takes hundreds of thousands of years to provide alkalinity back to the ocean. Current volcanic CO2 emissions are around 0.26 billion tons a year. The Permian extinction saw around 1-2 billion tons a year – over a 50,000 year period. A four-fold to eight-fold increase in the rate. The weathering process could not keep up with that and the ocean acidified. It puts things into context.

We strongly suspect ocean acidification because the extinction rate was preferential. In other words marine life that strongly relied upon the calcium carbonate saturation state of seawater, and were less buffered (protected, so-to-speak), were extinguished, whereas those that were less reliant saw far lower rates of extinction. So extinction was selective on the basis on calcification and any buffering capacity.

“But there is an alternative possibility, the oceans changed very slowly because they are strongly buffered”

Except they aren’t. Current measured pH is falling in line with expectations of the rate of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-burning.

Numerous studies have looked at this problem and found it won’t provide any relief for centuries. See Morse (2006) – Initial responses of carbonate-rich shelf sediments to rising atmospheric pCO2 and “ocean acidification”: Role of high Mg-calcites.

Sorry, but trotting out one lame excuse after the other will not help alleviate this problem.

“Except they aren’t. Current measured pH is falling in line with expectations of the rate of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-burning”.

Data and time frames are not sufficient to make that judgement about pH. Also, high Mg calcites are not the only carbonate buffer in the ocean. There are a number of others.

Even though the rate of volcanic ’emissions’ is ~0.26 billion tonnes, this does not include the enrichment and dissolution of carbonate within subsurface rocks that occurs in underwater volcanoes and the associated sea subsurface, this is vastly larger than ’emissions’, and it interacts with seawater in large volumes.

There are large volumes of c02-enriched volcanic rocks in uplifted accretionary terranes, I have drilled through hundreds of metres of subsurface carbonate-enriched rock (up to about 10%) from extinct underwater volcanoes and mid ocean ridge systems. These rocks extend for thousands of square kilometres in every ocean, and are not included in Morse’s analysis of ‘carbonate shelf sediments’. Carbonate processes are an important component of the seawater-volcanic interface; these are not included in ’emissions’ because they do not ’emit’ into the atmosphere, yet they interact in large volumes with seawater. Let me take a guess that the marine ecologists have bothered to think about carbonate and the subsurface volcanic-subsurface interface. One guess, they haven’t. And there are many other carbonate processes within the ocean.

Those trained in ecology and marine biology are not trained to, and do not routinely think about these sort of subsurface processes; their training is to only think about what happens above surface and in the atmosphere, but the whole biosphere extends down several kilometres; in the volcanic-seawater interface this has strong relevance. As usual, it is not included in IPCC models (dominated by ecologists/NGO activists etc etc)

I think what they mean is that certain species of coral became extinct, ones that came along after the time gaps were slightly different; the same happened with coal-forming species, at the end Permian most vegetation died out, the ones that formed coal later after about a 10 million year hiatus, were different varieties of swamp vegetation.

Yes, I’m sure you can work out that coral once extinct are gone forever. New coral forms, quite different from before, evolved in their place. See how great science is at finding the answers? Skepticism on the other hand is more like mysticism.

I would have to disagree with your assertion that “skepticism …is more like mysticism.”
Surely the basis of science is skepticism? Without a continual questioning and testing of scientific hypotheses, science is merely opinion.
I think the reason that so many people now hold science and scientists in such low regard is that science itself has been corrupted and politicised.
If you are not a sceptical you are probably gullible.

thingadonta – contrary to your assertions, all aspects of the carbon cycle have been considered. Don’t you think that most scientists would like for global warming and ocean acidification to not be a problem too? Check out the work by Robert Berner for a start.

Sure it’s a massive undertaking, but that doesn’t imply that the basic workings aren’t understood. Clearly there are a number of stabilizing feedbacks or atmospheric CO2 and ocean pH would wander all over the show through time. They haven’t. They’ve remained remarkably conducive to life. Not always of course, but generally so.

A real problem for skeptics (yourself excluded) is that inorganic sediments precipitated abiotically (without biological influence) at times when atmospheric CO2 was high. This can only happen in strongly supersaturated waters.

Also don’t you think it’s odd that you’re arguing that the oceans are so well buffered they can’t acidify, whereas most skeptics argue they were acidic but that somehow marine life were next to invulnerable? (even though they perished many,many times). Why don’t you correct them, if you’re so sure of yourself? Just wondering.

Rob,
I think Tzilla was asking for links to the publications that support your claims. Actually, I would be very interested in reading these publications. Are you actually going to deliver this time or are you going to leave us hanging?

[Editors Note: I think you will almost certainly be directed straight to the Skeptical Science website, as that is from where Rob hails.]

we gotta stop calling these people warmists…
They honestly think that ANY and all change is bad and man made…
Guess what? The “climate” (average global temperatures over time) can only be doing 1 of 3 things

1 Getting colder
2 getting warmer
3 staying the same

Now, all through the history of the planet 3.8 billion years or so, the climate has been either getting warmer or colder (so thats where all those glacial lakes came from and slartibartfasts fjords…) its NEVER stayed the same, well not for very long anyways.

That gentle folk, is complete popycock, there is abundant geological evidence of rapid changes in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere…Burgess shale anyone? pick a mass extinction, theres’ +18 to choose from….

At the moment, we’re in a warm spot…but to THEN look at the data and scream bloody blue murder because OMG the climate is changing….
Thats insane, just like looking at RECENT trends in ocean acidity and claiming that CHANGE is BAD…..

The ROOT CAUSE of every problem in / with the environment is overpopulation not bloody co2 or sub decile changes so small of (insert you prefered doom here temp, ph, CO2….)that they fall within error limits of measuring apperatus.

Conclusions:
The oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere is decreasing the pH and lowering the CO3 2– concentration and CaCO3 saturation states of aragonite and calcite in the upper ocean.
Ocean acidification is expected to result in a pH decrease of ~ 0.3–0.4 units relative to pre-industrial values by the end of this century. Based on the best available information and model projections, it appears that as levels of dissolved CO2 in seawater rise, the skeletal growth rates
of calcium-secreting organisms will be reduced due to the effects of decreased ocean CO3 2– concentrations. If anthropogenic CO2 emissions are not dramatically reduced in the coming decades, there is the potential for direct and profound impacts on our living marine ecosystems.

Sillyfilly – I stopped reading at the second sentence of your quoted 12 page PDF file, which contain the words “Estimates based on the IPCC …. “
Sorry but that was enough for me realise the rest of the file was based on garbage!

It’s not acidification, because the sea cannot get acidic. Depletion of fish is everybody’s fault; for not listening to me!!!

Lots of oils, fat ends up in the sea now than ever before. Chicken fat, pork, beef fat, canola, olive oil, industrial oils… they spread on the surface of the water. Water by splashing, suppose to replenish its oxygen. 2] oils prevent evaporation – when more water evaporates / collects oxygen in the clouds – less evaporation > less clouds > less rain > less oxygen. Very simple, unfortunately, the mountains of literature about the phony GLOBAL warming has clouded Skeptics brains, instead of clouds in the sky…

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